Paris Photo, Day 2: Discoveries from Ukraine and Argenteuil

It’s not all black and white, after all

It’s hard to know where to start with a show as huge as this one, so if you’ve walked across the city to get here, a cup of tea is not a terrible idea.

So I had a cup of tea.

Then I walked through the book displays.

My initial plan was to try to unravel one of the organizers’ theme threads — in the case of the Elles X Paris Photo (a focus on women photographers), that’s a pathway through the exhibit.

But I was sidetracked by a booth featuring the supersized work of a brilliant young photographer, Hubert Crabières, who told me how he had created compelling and celebratory images during lockdown. Crabières has won a variety of honors. His vibrant presence on Instagram showcases the range of his work, but the images on display here were recent and coherent in featuring both color and collaboration. Here’s a broad view of his booth:

Crabières explained that he thought it was time to have a party during lockdown, but with social distancing in force, he had to do it with colors and fireworks in his Argenteuil studio. A friend helped him ensure that the place wouldn’t burn down when they set off the fireworks. The elaborate setup for the photo shoot took a very long time. You can see the glasses with colored liquid spread across the floor and confetti covering everything. I love that his houseplants are also part of the set.

Argenteuil, a suburb of Paris, is home to a huge fabric market and Crabières loves collecting brightly colored fabric. He says he is color-blind but can see the bright shades. He has printed some of his photos in huge format on the pieces of fabric, and in addition, has taken a series of photos of the fabric draped all over his studio. An interview in Photo Vogue elaborates on his preoccupations and the ways he has been drawn into reconceptualizing fashion photography, which did not initially interest him.

“Fashion as such, mainly as a market with its symbolic and economic power relationships, has never fascinated me. My practice of photography has brought me into contact with people from the fashion world. As photography is a conceptual and plastic field of expression that interests me deeply, the possible links that can exist with the fashion image have raised my interest.”

He goes on to say, very nicely, that he did not initially find himself politically in tune with the world of fashion. (I am trying to maintain the politesse of his words!)

“My research has always been to find a way to combine a form of radicalism with a professional context, two purposes that sometimes seem to be naturally opposed from each other. The more the constraints seem to be drawn, the more I want to find solutions.”

— Hubert Crabières to Chiara Bardelli Nonino, June 2021.

Thus Crabières embeds in his large, color-filled images a sense of context as well as the construction of the image. “I like the idea of trying to do big things with very simple or not expensive accessories.”

I love the joyous, comic composition of these images that also carries a message for fashion photography.

Uh, speaking of politics and color — and politics: I ventured into the booth of Alexandra de Viveiros (Nomadic Gallery, Paris) and found several striking Ukrainian photographers. The “color” part is a father-son partnership, Viktor and Sergiy Kochetov, taking B/W photos of scenes around Kharkiv, Ukraine. They make these into prints that are hand-colored, like this one:

The photo is thirty years old, yet it takes on heft in the context of Russia’s punishing attack on Ukraine and the strategic importance of Kharkiv and the Dnipro.

Another colored photograph from the Kochetovs is a poignant reminder of more peaceful times in Kharkiv — though it was still under Soviet control until 1991.

Aperture published a story last year analyzing the ways the photographers in this powerful School of Kharkiv matter in the context of the brutal Russian onslaught. “The origins of the Vremia Group go back to a photography club in Kharkiv, where the members got to know each other and realized they had a shared artistic calling, one contrary to the direction imposed by the Soviet regime,” writes Luca Fiore.

“But today, Russia seems to want to turn back the clock, and Ukrainians are well aware of what they are fighting against, because they have been there before. And they don’t want to turn back.”

— Evgeny Pavlov, as quoted by Fiore, Aperture, March 2022.

Pavlov, 77, a founder of the Vremia Group, is now a refugee in Austria, where he and his wife (a photographic historian) fled after a missile landed much too close to his car.

Olexandr Suprun, another member of the first generation of the Kharkiv school of photography, began exhibiting in the 1970s. He specializes in collage so careful that it is difficult to perceive without guidance. Olexandra Osadcha, who was in the booth when I stopped by, is the Rome-based curator of the Museum of Kharkiv School of Photography. She showed me the progression of Suprun’s work, from experiments with collage to the final images. I had seen some of these images the day before and took them as “straight” non-manipulated photos. The photograph foregrounded from this booth on the online viewing gallery is this one:

The latest generation of the Kharkiv School is represented by two members of the Shilo group. Below is a print from Vladyslav Krasnoshchok, from his series “Hospital” (2008–2018). Krasnoshchok, himself a physician, uses the technique of lith-print on expired paper, as Osadcha explained to me, which guarantees that the print will not be uniform and that its final form is unpredictable. In addition, given Ukraine’s dire military and medical status, the photographs in this series take on additional power.

The final photographer represented in the Alexandra de Viveiros booth is Sergiy Lebedynskyy, who also uses anachronistic printing methods to underline the irony of his subject, mud healing in a simple pit that has been shown to contain elements that are not healthy at all.

Like many — I really hope, most — of you, I’ve been deeply distressed by Putin’s bloody attack on Ukraine. This photo exhibit offers a powerful reminder of the heritage and continuing resilience of Ukraine’s artists, both at home and in diaspora, in the face of Russia’s appalling and deadly aggression.

One more, less painful, note from Paris Photo:

I found two photographs that echoed each other from across the wide hall.

I’m sure I could find additional iterations of the eye theme, and I may when I go back. I would say the eyes have it, but that would be annoying.

If you stay late enough at the show, you get this bonus.

Ah, Paris.

Thanks for reading. Paris Photo, Day 1, is here: